Admission Test (3)

"So this is where you were?"

Was she talking to me? No. She had to be bluffing — just fishing, nothing more. That was the only possibility I would allow.

That was what I told myself, right up until a blade of blue flame carved the cave cleanly in two, and moonlight spilled down across my face.

"...Ah."

The sigh left me on its own. Ten minutes. I only needed ten more minutes and I would be inside the Academy.

That blue sword-light. And the figure standing in front of me now.

White hair. Red eyes. A face beautiful enough to pull a gasp out of anyone, and a voice pitched just a shade low.

It was Raven. No question about it.

"Ten minutes, huh... I'll wrap this up quick and go catch the others."

Don't say that with those clear, untroubled eyes.

She didn't wait for me to finish processing any of it. Her foot slammed into the ground, and she came at me in a straight line.

She was overwhelmingly strong — combat power that would put her in the highest tier even among the second-years.

But.

A sharp crack rang out as I caught the incoming blade on a large brush.

I had played the game so many times. I had watched her so many times. Her combat patterns, her habits, even her skills — I knew all of it.

"You blocked it? Interesting."

Even so, the impact that traveled through my arm from that single exchange left my hand ringing. What kind of destructive force was that?

Running for a full ten minutes was impossible. I would have to hold my ground for that time instead.

Nine hours of sleep had almost fully restored my spiritual power. Raven, on the other hand, had been fighting nonstop — hers had to be running low. I needed to wring every drop of advantage out of that fact.

She settled into a stance, wrapped her blade in burning blue spiritual power, and unleashed a flurry of consecutive strikes.

I had seen this one too. The difference was that this time, I had to stop every last blow myself.

An internal injury would end it on the spot. I fought with spiritual power and nothing else.

I barely managed to turn the exploding chain of slashes aside, and even that was only deflection. The ones that slipped past still grazed my shoulder, carving wounds as they went.

This... really isn't my lucky day.

Nine minutes. I still had to last about nine more minutes.

I wasn't going to just stand there and take it, though. I had trained for a year. Time to show ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠what that was worth.

Ten small brushes bloomed into existence, then poured toward her at a flick of my hand.

"Brushes? You think these'll stop me?"

Every last one of them was split in half and vanished. Light attacks like that weren't going to land. Fine.

I had no chance in close quarters. Holding mid-range was a far better bet.

Except I apparently wasn't the only one with a ranged option.

Mortal Flame. Blue fire not unlike a will-o'-the-wisp — and anything it touched took damage straight to the soul.

A blow to the soul meant interference with the flow of spiritual power. It lowered output, too.

For someone whose only path to survival was spiritual power, that attack was a genuine threat.

Damn it. Here it came again. This one would be hard to stop.

Then I just had to hit first, before it arrived.

I summoned three small brushes into the air and fired an Ink Cannon.

"...Ha. What kind of insane monster...!"

She tanked the Ink Cannon and kept coming anyway? No. There was no way she had taken that clean. She had to be hurt.

Don't think. Don't look and calculate. Move on instinct. Dodge on instinct. That was the only answer.

Raven's upward slash came in, the blade rising to split my torso in two. I shifted a half-step back and barely slipped it.

In the same motion, her foot drove toward my stomach. But—

"That's way too obvious."

She caught my leg. Then her elbow started to drop ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠toward my calf.

I used the trapped leg against her.

Raven's entire body was currently reinforced by her Color Trait. The grip coming through my leg was no joke — if I hadn't wrapped the limb in spiritual power, the bone would have shattered on the spot.

I used that grip. I drove force into the caught leg and hauled my body upward like a sit-up.

"Wh... what?"

"Eat this."

A small brush bloomed in my left hand. I poured spiritual power into the tip and shoved it straight into her face.

A thunderous blast. Paint erupted in a violent spray.

But I had fired too fast. I hadn't gathered enough spiritual power — which meant I hadn't dealt any real damage.

"Ow... I've never had a fight like this..."

The smoke cleared, and Raven was still standing. Could I last another eight minutes?

This is actually gonna ki—

The air tore. The spot where Raven had been standing was empty.

No — not empty. She was right in front of me, her blade already coming for my throat.

Too late. I couldn't shove myself back with a small brush. I couldn't duck. The sword was already faster than anything I could do.

Then it was all or nothing. I dumped every last drop of spiritual power into my neck.

A harsh metallic ring. Blood from my throat soaked my side. But I was fine.

My neck hadn't been cut through.

"Gah... you crazy...!"

Her eyes went wide. In that stunned half-second I kicked her square on.

As she went down, I forced five small brushes to erupt from the ground beneath her.

And then — what even was that movement?

Whether she felt the threat on instinct or not, Raven spun her body in midair and sheared through every rising brush. She didn't stop there. She used the rotation itself to bring a slash crashing down.

I snapped my head to the side and just managed to slip it.

She read the threat, blocked, and even counterattacked. An opponent this absurd shouldn't exist. On top of that, there was her Color Trait — Red. The more she fought, the stronger she became, and it was firing even now.

Seven minutes. Hold for seven minutes and I won.

Which meant I had to weather a version of her that would keep getting stronger for the entire seven minutes.

"I didn't expect to run into someone like you in a transfer exam."

"I am pretty strong, yeah."

I'd been put through the wringer for a whole year, after all.

"Let's do this for real."

Her spiritual power really must have been bottoming out, if she was reaching for Blood Surge.

Blood Surge wrenched the body past its own limits. When it ended, the damage came due. Then again, she only had seven minutes left — maybe that was why she was willing to take the gamble.

I, on the other hand, had spiritual power to spare. Nine hours of sleep had set off one hell of a butterfly effect.

A faster Raven came at me. A stronger one, too.

But who in their right mind goes head-to-head with an opponent who just got stronger?

I ran. I would run until Raven had burned through as much spiritual power as possible, as wastefully as possible.

I summoned small brushes in bulk — enough of them to sit on — then steered the whole mass like a flying carpet and took off.

"Huh...? H-hey, where are you going!"

Fights are won by cowards.

Just running wasn't going to be enough, though. She came after me immediately, and at full speed.

The weight made true flight impossible. Still — one minute. I just needed to buy one more minute.

She was so fast she had already closed in from behind. I kicked off the carpet and jumped past her back, summoned a small brush into my right hand, and went for her throat.

A wet, punching sound. The strike drove through her left hand and stopped there.

That was enough. Raven would not be using that hand again.

"Ugh... that hurts..."

Even while she clutched the wound and tried to collect herself, time kept moving. Roughly five minutes left.

Five minutes. Just five more.

She tore a strip from her clothes, bound the gash on her left hand, and came at me with her sword again.

A vicious exchange erupted around the large brush. Close combat was a terrible matchup for me, but I couldn't find a single opening to put distance between us.

The clash of our weapons filled the forest. So did the sound of my body opening up, and the drip of blood hitting the ground.

Three minutes.

But the fight was starting to tilt my way. Why?

Because Raven's spiritual power was almost gone. She could no longer spend it freely.

Which was why she looked like she was lining up a final blow.

She stepped back and lowered her stance. Perfect form — identical to what I had seen in the game.

That posture. The spiritual power rolling off her body. There was no mistaking it.

Annihilation Slash.

Raven's finishing move, and one of the most destructive skills in the entire game. That, however, was fully grown Raven.

The Annihilation Slash in front of me was incomplete. Her spiritual power was even a notch below what the technique was supposed to put out. And if she used it, she would collapse from exhaustion — which meant she was betting everything on this one strike.

Her stance was already set. She was gathering spiritual power, and the range ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was so wide that running was no longer an option.

Then I would take it.

I summoned the large brush and poured every scrap of spiritual power I had been hoarding — gathering and gathering — into the tip.

I was betting everything on this one shot, too.

"...Ha. What, you trying to have an output contest with me?"

To Raven, what I was doing had to look like suicide. Even a pre-growth Raven, even an unfinished technique — strong was still strong. How many skills in this world could even clash head-on with that Annihilation Slash?

But right now, an output contest was possible.

The wounds on her body. The spiritual power she had already spent. The incomplete technique. Those three variables put a real chance in my hands, so I forced even more spiritual power into the brush.

To the limit, and past the limit. Compressing, then compressing again, until it became a point no different from the Big Bang.

A five-colored speck bloomed at the tip of the brush. There. I had concentrated every last drop of spiritual power I could gather into that single point.

I could fire the Ink Cannon now. Raven, meanwhile, was still gathering.

If I used it this instant, the win was mine. I could even force out one more small brush, send it first, and fire a full turn earlier — an easy, clean victory.

But.

...Then it wouldn't be any fun.

Call me insane if you want. An output contest against a character from the game I loved — who in the world was supposed to sit that out?

And if I lost? I'd think about that later. Right now, this was what mattered.

One minute.

"Here I come?"

The words had barely left her mouth before the sword came down.

The slash that came at me was a different color from anything she had used until now. Red — the color of her very soul — tore forward with enough force to cut the island in half.

It looked ready to carve through everything. A single swing like that might even have been enough to shatter the barrier around this place.

And this was the technique used in a weakened state.

I wasn't going to lose to it.

The tip of the large brush tore open. Light that outshone reality erupted from it, and color flooded the world.

It was not a simple collision of spiritual power. The five-colored Ink Cannon and the red slash locked together, and the saturation of the entire battlefield flipped inside out.

The world itself felt as though it had been inverted to black and white. Only the two techniques still held color, and only they still shone.

Pushed back. Then punching through. Pushed back again.

Annihilation Slash tore at the torrent of Ink Cannon, trying to force its way forward.

But in pure output, I had the edge. I drove through it just like that.

A wave of brilliant, noble color rolled over Annihilation ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Slash and crushed it down.

A final, bone-deep detonation — and the red sword-line shattered into pieces.

In the thick dust and the lingering remnants of spiritual power, Raven went down with her blade. I was no better. Covered in blood, I could barely keep myself upright, using the large brush as a cane.

Raven lay on the ground, staring blankly at the afterglow of color. Then she slowly closed her eyes. And vanished.

So this was the start of academy life? That could wait. Right now, I desperately wanted to rest.

Finally. I could finally eat a real meal and get a real night's sleep. Finally.

"Haa... I'm so damn tired."